The Story of a Saint

A vast area, once as large as a country, has now been flattened. No one can tell what it looked like before or how magnificent it once was. All that remains is scorched ground and melted metals scattered everywhere.

From a higher vantage point, one could observe a palm-shaped impression on the Earth's crust. This imprint spans over twenty-five thousand miles, making the beings below feel utterly despondent when facing its owner.

At the center of the devastation, a young man struggles to stand. He is dressed in what used to be a white and golden outfit, now stained with blood, and his golden cloak has been torn to shreds. 

His body is in a wretched state. His left arm is completely gone, and his right arm is reduced to bone and a few patches of flesh.

His left eye and part of his left head have been blown away, giving him a terrifying appearance. The remaining intact part of his head is now pale and lifeless. 

A large hole punctures his chest, revealing the scenery behind him. His legs are mostly gone, leaving only small stumps attached to his body.

He manages to stand due to a source of golden energy that simulates the shape of his limbs and other body parts, keeping him functional. 

In his right hand, he still holds a heavily damaged weapon. At his feet lie the shattered remains of a golden spear.

He lifts his head to the sky and breathes heavily.

"Gasp... Only... me... left. Gasp, I'm so... tired."

His eyes, filled with exhaustion and despair, still press forward. The golden energy fuses the broken pieces of the spear together, though not as perfectly as before, still usable for battle. 

Nine gray soul rings, now cracked, emerge from his body and float behind him.

"They're all broken... well, whatever."

Whether it's broken or not, he has to fight so he doesn't think about it anymore.

Beside him, a small spatial rift appeared, releasing dozens of pills emanating powerful energy. 

All these pills flew into his body simultaneously. Clenching his teeth, he gathered all his remaining strength, unleashing a golden aura around himself before soaring into the sky.

In the sky, a 'man' hovered in mid-air, his hand extended downward towards the ground. 

This figure had a human-like body, but his head lacked any facial features except for a mouth. 

His body was entirely black, adorned with small dots resembling stars. From below, he seemed to blend with the night sky, giving the impression that "The sky is him, but he is not the sky."

Despite not having eyes, the man could see the youth's actions. Retracting his hand, he smiled at the young man.

"Ha ha, still alive, huh? You've done well. If you go home and sleep now, I'll spare your life." he said, his tone not joking but serious, genuinely offering the youth mercy if he chose to leave.

However, the young man ignored his words, glaring at him as if he were an enemy and shouted:

"There's nothing left, so why should I live? I want that even in death, I'll take whatever's left of humanity to wound you. Remember this: the weak humanity is what will hurt you."

The man smirked and replied:

"Well, well, you're mistaken. There's still a whole big Earth with many creatures. But if you're so eager to die, I won't let you. Come and fight me. When you're almost out of strength, I'll help you recover."

The youth did not waver or slow down. Instead, his speed increased. Just as he approached, another spatial rift appeared beside him. A bright, indistinct figure emerged from it.

At that moment, the young man suddenly stopped. No, more accurately, the time within this spatial area had temporarily halted. 

The newly arrived figure, after freezing everything in the area, began communicating with the youth through soul speech.

"Alex Johnson, the last Saint—Human Saint. I have a way to help you salvage the current situation."

Though Alex was slightly surprised by the sudden freeze, he was even more shocked that the entity he was targeting was also stopped. He spoke:

"Who are you? If you can stop him, you can kill him. Just kill him, and I'll do anything. If you want me to die, I'll do it right now."

The indistinct figure shook its head and said:

"I am the Anti-god, essentially the opposite of that being. Though we are opposites, we cannot harm each other due to the cosmic rules. However, I truly have a way to help you."

Alex was disappointed, but he couldn't believe there was another solution, so he asked:

"Don't joke with me, I'm the Human Saint. I've lived for over eleven thousand years, including time spent in the Saint's trial. The only way that maybe help me is to reverse time, but that is entirely impossible. Not even a God can do it because it violates the fundamental logic, the only rule that the entire universe must adhere to without exception."

Alex, as an eternal being, understood that without a similarly ranked or superior entity to end him, he could never die. 

He was well aware of the universe's most basic rule. In the past, he had sought ways to resurrect loved ones or return to the past to correct mistakes. 

But then he realized that although moving at the speed of light can stop time, it is not really like that.

The only thing that can see time stop is the moving object, surpassing the speed of light, time cannot be reversed.

The basic matter in the universe, light is the fastest. He is a saint so he can use some special ways to overcome this limit, but while using that speed, he is basically no longer a normal matter.

Therefore, he is relatively useless in that state because he cannot affect any matter and pass through all of them.

But that method has nothing to do with time travel. Time is a flow that moves forward, it can only be used temporarily in one area but there is no way to stop the entire universe unless you have more energy than the universe.

But a being in the universe is only a part of the universe. You can never be stronger than yourself plus something.

He eventually realized that some rules, if broken, would imply that nothing in existence ever truly existed. In simple terms, the universe he was in would just be an absurd game or an illogical cartoon. 

Later, as he grew stronger, he understood that even the supreme deity was bound by these rules. But there weren't many rules—so long as a God acted within the logic of the universe, all actions were permissible.

Other actions were simply impossible because one couldn't turn something 100% illogical into reality, except in dreams or self-deception, which Gods disdain to engage in.